


Cultural Particulars

by C1ytemnestra



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Black Emporium (Dragon Age), Blood Magic (Dragon Age), Canon Trans Character, Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi - Freeform, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Internalized Transphobia, M/M, Minor The Iron Bull/Lavellan (Dragon Age), Octavius Lavellan (OC), POV Third Person Limited, Self-Indulgent, The Iron Bull (Dragon Age) - Freeform, The Iron Bull (Dragon Age) is a Good Friend, Trans Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Transphobia, cole and the chargers are also mentioned, dorian pavus - Freeform, it's touched on! i have HEADCANONS, more like thanks patrick weekes, thanks david gaider (sarcasm), that's a tag that exists and it feels appropriate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22748800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C1ytemnestra/pseuds/C1ytemnestra
Summary: Not everyone has nice armor and a well-placed sock to get by on; some have to make do in much messier ways.Content warning for some internalized transphobia and general insecurity.
Relationships: Lavellan/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	Cultural Particulars

**Author's Note:**

> periodically i reread this and notice glaring typos or errors. latest edit 02/29/2020

"He wasn't born a man," one of the others clarified. 

Octavius feigned ignorance: " _Really_ ?" He did his very best to sound surprised, as if the very possibility were some kind of foreign concept to him. 

"Don't Qunari have a special word for it, when a warrior used to be a woman?" they continued, looking to the Iron Bull, who gave an affirmative grunt: " _Aqun-athlok._ Born as one gender but lives like another. Typically it’s female soldiers who live as men." Octavius felt Bull's eyes on him - not accusatory, but a lot more aware than the person who brought the subject up. Likewise, he turned his own eyes to Krem, suppressing a conspiratorial smirk with another swig of swill. The unspoken familiarity was delightful to him, a silent code of signs and signals most people didn't know to pick up on.

"There's a Dalish word for that too," he said. "Or something similar. _Sun'ghihelgan_ \- outside of one's sex - or just _ghihelgan_ , sometimes. It's an ancient concept. I don't know that it still survives in every clan."

"Really," rumbled Bull in a tone not dissimilar from Octavius's own mere moments ago. His voice had such a unique resonance, deep in his chest, and it tended to make the Inquisitor's stomach flutter when he wasn't anticipating it. It might have been the case with all Qunari, it might have been a quality of accent or convention, but Octavius liked to think that the voice of no other would elicit the same kind of reaction from him. He knew Bull must know, too. The man was a damned Ben-Hassarath. Just like he must have noticed when Octavius's hair suddenly changed after Bull made a comment about redheads when they first got talking; or like he no doubt picked up on the subtleties of the way Octavius's clothes fit, even under armor or all the layers he bundled up with here in the Frostbacks - this also implied Bull checking him out, and while the idea brought some blood to his face, it would by no means take him by surprise. Bull likely heard, too, Octavius's unusual tone and inflections, out of place even for a Dalish elf, regardless of how deep he usually managed to drag his voice up from. In the mornings especially, he relished knowing his friends every day of travel were privy to that low voice from the depths of his chest, and he relished how measured and composed he managed to be otherwise, increasingly rarely edging up into something high and irritable...while sober and in the workplace, at least. He cherished how readily accepted and rarely questioned he was here. (Being _Inquisitor_ Octavius Lavellan, the _Herald_ of _Andraste_ helped with that on a larger scale.) On the other hand he certainly felt for Krem, whose gender was apparently an icebreaker needing explanation. Surely that talk resulted in a lot of _I'd never have known if you hadn't told me_ bullshit, always condescending and at best backhanded. Octavius had not voluntarily broached such subjects on his own behalf in years, save for some idiot apostate he ran into while traveling down to the Conclave, and that might as well have been a lifetime ago for how much changed in the months since. Even then, he only brought it up after alcohol got the ball rolling on oversharing and misplaced flirting. Even with Dorian, the subject had gone unspoken so far. He could only assume Dorian knew by this point. While they had yet to have sex, they'd been quite physically intimate on a very regular basis, and if Dorian had any questions he was not the type to let them go unanswered, or to hesitate to ask. 

He wondered - did Krem have somebody? A girlfriend? A boyfriend? Someone he met during his travels with the Chargers, or maybe one of the Inquisition? A soldier, a scout? The bard who hung around the Herald's Rest whose name Octavius wouldn't be able to remember if his life depended on it? (In his defense, he didn't find her to be conversationally provocative enough to talk to her long enough to get to know her and learn _anything_ memorable about her.) He couldn't imagine the man didn't have admirers, at the very least. He was young, witty, handsome, excellent with directions and easily as good with a weapon. Those were things Octavius noticed more as Krem's indirect employer and casual acquaintance, but they were hardly downsides. 

At the end of the night, after too many retellings of the slaying of this and that high dragon and still more drink, Octavius pulled Krem aside: "I'd like to talk alone." Even as the alcohol dragged his enunciation around, he forced his usual professionalism. 

"Sure thing, Inquisitor. Whatcha need?" Krem stood by his usual chair, one hand on his hip as the other rested heavily onto the chair's back.

"Perhaps we talk upstairs," Octavius offered. Didn't Cole hang around up there? He did, didn't he. That was fine, Cole was one of the few people - "people?" - he really didn't mind overhearing a conversation like this. 

Krem laughed: "You've gotta be kidding. I've seen you fall off those stairs sober. Could always head outside. Getting late enough I don't think much of anybody's out eavesdropping."

"Except Cole," Octavius mumbled, thinking out loud. He ignored Krem's question of "Who?" and continued, "It's all the same," with a dismissive wave. "Outside's fine."

"Your call," said Krem, nodding, and followed Octavius outside. 

The two ended up sitting against the Herald's wall, too tired and unsteady to find somewhere much further and certainly not to find an isolated corner of the castle as Octavius momentarily suggested, already slouched against the stone bricks and sliding down into the shrubs and dirt below. 

"I don't imagine it's exactly _acceptable_ in Tevinter, is it?" he blurted out, too loudly and with too little forethought. He couldn't think of a way to ask politely. Krem briefly puzzled over what he meant; the conversation had long passed and was one of the evening's least riveting by no small margin. 

"Sitting in the dirt outside taverns?" he managed with a snicker. "Not exactly, no, but there's worse you can get caught doing without ending up an enemy of the Magisterium."

Octavius couldn't help smiling, at least. Charmer. "I more meant - oh, you know." A brief pause for gesticulation as he tried to think of a way to phrase it. "People like us."

To which Krem replied: " _Oh!_

"Yeah, no, of course. Sorry 'bout that, long night."

"Lots more talk of dragons than everyone's cultural particulars," Octavius agreed. He tried to sound encouraging, or something close to it. 

Krem shifted, sinking lower against the wall with a long sigh. "Some kind of cultural particulars. 'Not acceptable's an understatement. It's cost me a lot, nearly gotten me killed. _Tevinter_ 's not the most _accepting_ place, by and by. Sure you've heard plenty about that shacking up with the Altus."

" _No_." Again Octavius mimed shock, though not trying to fool anyone this time. "And here I thought the Imperium's motto was to spread love, peace, and harmony."

"They'd probably tell you it was if they thought anyone'd believe it. What'd you wanna ask me?"

"Hah. Well, speaking of the Altus...did you ever think to use blood magic, or something? To make it easier?"

Krem firmly shook his head. "Never. I wouldn't touch the stuff, not on my life. Anyway, give me some nice armor and a well placed sock and I'm happy. ...Although," he added after a pause, "I dunno if I'd blame anyone else for trying that themselves."

* * *

Upon collapsing in his sequestered chambers that evening, Octavius promptly forgot the subject for several weeks. When it returned to him, it was with an overwhelming wave of fear and anxiety. This was manipulating nature, surely. This was devastatingly wrong and immoral, and Dorian? Dorian would surely be abhorred by the very idea. To change one's body so drastically had to be dangerous. And to use _blood magic_ to twist it to your whims? 

"Disgusting," he muttered to himself, face in his hands, lying clothed atop his covers in bed shortly after returning to Skyhold in the dead of night. "Vain." His nails clawed into his scalp, down his forehead, dragging slowly over the low ridges of his scars and vallaslin. He recalled his second visit to the Black Emporium, standing before the Mirror of Transformation, combing his hair out of its braid with his fingers, watching it change for the first time from brackish brown to a dark, rich auburn, making note of every other unflattering detail - his nose, misshapen and squashed; his heavily lidded eyes; the inset scowl of his lips; his heavy brow - and surreally seeing them change.

He saw his face idealized into one he would certainly pursue but didn't recognise beyond skin, scars, and vallaslin, and even that changed, darkening where the ink was uneven, not having taken and fading over the years. The alterations were so drastic, yet with the Mark his identity couldn't be called into question. Cassandra and Solas would detest him for the frivolity if it - Cassandra moreso, he thought - but what did that matter? They hardly knew him, and he was _very_ sure Cassandra already thought him an idiot, tolerable at best. He could rid himself of insecurities. And probably push it further, too.

The proprietor's voice snapped him out of his trance, echoing around him: "It only works for the superficial, you know. You have to take personality alterations up with yourself, and anything on the _inside_ to a mage, or a surgeon." Octavius's eyes had left his reflection's, drifting instead to the mirror's image of the massive, dessicated, twisted bodies in the chair at the center of the room. He swore one of the six arms wrapped around the back had moved since he last looked. 

What they said made sense. He suddenly felt silly for getting his hopes up, presuming magic could work miracles or somehow cheat nature so _easily_. When his gaze returned to his reflection, green, green eyes meeting themselves once more, his stomach turned. This was so unnatural, so uncanny, so deeply unsettling and so much _not_ him -

The changes receded again, and before he knew it his reflection was him again. Still ugly, but familiar. He liked the red, too, he thought. Maybe the Iron Bull was onto something about that.

Months later, the deaths of hundreds later and the saving of still more (he hoped), he lay awake in Skyhold, teeth gritted and tears streaming down his face. "You're so stupid, so _selfish_ ," he hissed. "And to think you wanted to bring Dorian into it too, for your own stupid, selfish - "

"Wanted to bring Dorian into what?"

The mage stood at the top of the stairs leading up into the tower. Octavius didn't hear him coming up and now couldn't remember just what and how much he said out loud. He took his hands away from his face, instead propping himself up on his elbows.

He faltered: "I…" He swallowed, sat up, quickly wiped the tears - ugh, _tears_ \- from his face. "I didn't hear you come in," he said, a bit flat. A bit hollow. At least it wasn't broken, vulnerable, and terrified, all of which he then felt.

"I couldn't tell," said Dorian. Lilting, dry. Octavius scrambled for a decent lie as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Dorian came to hover beside him. He didn't look up, eyes focused on his hands, fingers intertwining and unweaving in his lap, nails cutting into his callused palms. "Amatus," came Dorian's voice, and with it his hand on Octavius's knee as he sat beside him. His tone was gentle, but urgent. "Tell me what's wrong."

Octavius broke down, unable to keep the words from spilling out: "You have to promise not to leave me for this.” His voice broke and the tears flowed once more as his eyes met Dorian's with a look of little but desperation.

"That depends on who you killed," chided Dorian. "I make no promises about children or people I like. All of our friends are still alive since I saw them two hours ago?"

Octavius forced a choked laugh. He had done that before, hadn't he? Alexius was the first and only person he ever killed with a sword. The Inquisitor's sword, unwieldy for an archer. He remembered exactly how it felt when he brought it down through Alexius's neck. How did Dorian forgive him? _Did_ Dorian forgive him? Enough to fall in love with him, apparently. Either those sentiments could coexist or Dorian was in for a very long con.

He shook his head, looking down again. His nose was running. Eugh. "No one died," he said, voice still strained, shaky.

"Then I am certain I can forgive it." Dorian's thumb stroked back and forth over Octavius's thigh, a comforting pressure. Practiced. He kept it up while Octavius caught his breath, trying to stop crying and collect himself for more than two seconds at once. It took a moment, his face in his hands for most of it, just trying to breathe, but he managed it eventually, breaths slowing and quieting. The tears stemmed. He sat in silence even as he lowered his hands, still struggling for a worthy lie. He couldn't seem to think of one to explain his reaction, and he didn't _want_ to lie to Dorian at all. He felt obligated, compelled by inevitable rejection. For all he knew, he thought, Dorian might think him a _man_ in the same sense as any other man. The two of them certainly hadn't discussed Octavius like that, as ghihelgan. Or maybe Dorian was just waiting for an outright confirmation one way or the other. Maybe the day would finally come he stripped Octavius down in one of their rooms and he would take one look at him and dismiss and ridicule him. Did Dorian really go through the trials he did, the _hell_ he did, only to end up with someone who might as well be -

"Your hair is a travesty, I've noticed." Dorian cut off Octavius's train of thought, voice low, amused. "Have you even redone it since you got pulled under in that blasted bog?" Without waiting for an answer, he took his hand from Octavius's leg, putting both to work at gently unraveling the grimy, matting braided updo Octavius's hair had in fact been in since the incident in question. The Fallow Mire was a nasty place, but somebody had to close the rifts he'd missed, and he was literally the only person qualified.

"I was going to wash it tomorrow," he said. A lukewarm defense, voice still high and tense.

Dorian clicked his tongue. "And if Corypheus moves on Skyhold tonight you'll face him in this state? Utter nonsense. I'll have someone draw you a bath." He pushed one last hand through Octavius's hair, away from his face and forehead, and let it rest there as he stood, then leant down and placed his lips to Octavius's forehead.

If he could trust anyone in the world, it was Dorian. The beautiful, brilliant port in his storm. Dorian's hand withdrew and Octavius grabbed his wrist before he could move a step further. "Wait," he said. "I...I'm ready."

His fingers were slack enough that Dorian easily brought his hand to cup his cheek. "We'll make note to Varric to leave the coating of swamp scum out of his retellings, then." Then softer, when Octavius didn't respond: "What is it?"

One more breath, then he had to say it. The breath was slow, deep, shaky, prolonged. He didn’t want to finish the exhale, but eventually ran out of air and made himself speak: “Dorian,” he started, and Dorian was quiet, patient. He felt Dorian’s eyes still looking down at his face, even if he couldn’t make himself look back up at Dorian’s. “It wouldn’t be unthinkable - it wouldn’t be _reprehensible_ to - how disgusting would it be if someone were to alter their body with blood magic?” He didn’t want to say it like that, he wished he had found better words, but he said it.

Dorian didn’t immediately pull back or admonish him, but he didn’t immediately speak, either. Octavius finally looked up, expecting to see his lover’s face contorted in disgust. There was no disgust, though, just Dorian, looking down, eyes soft as ever when they met Octavius’s. Smiling, nearly.

He knew. Of course he knew. More surprising was the idea that he understood.

“Hardly, amatus,” he said, then moved his thumb over Octavius’s cheek. “Well, not in my books. I’m sure you wouldn’t plan on asking Cassandra’s advice on the matter, but something gives me the idea she wouldn’t respond very positively.”

The relief Octavius felt was immeasurable. Just hearing _any_ positive affirmation of the idea from Dorian was nearly enough to send him back into tears. “I would need help,” he added quietly. "If I _were_ to try something like that.”

“Octavius.” Dorian’s other hand settled onto Octavius’s face as well, both tilting his face to look up and make eye contact. “I would be happy to.”

The Inquisitor himself started to cry again. “You have no idea how much that means to me,” he choked out. Then: “I love you. I love you so much.”

Dorian’s fingers brushed the tears from below Octavius’s eyes. “I know.” Dorian kissed his forehead again, next coming to rest his temples atop Octavius’s head, meeting eyes again. “I am, however, still going to draw that bath. I do cherish these intimate moments, but your flowing locks feel much nicer clean.” One last peck, this on the lips, then he parted, leaving Octavius tearily smiling at the edge of the bed.

“Dorian!” he called after. 

Dorian stopped at the top of the stairs, turning his head: “Octavius!”

“Why _did_ you come see me?”

“Why, to make sure you weren’t going to bed in your armor or with your boots on. Or, as it may be, still soaked through with _undead bog water_.”

With that, he made his way down the stairs. Octavius didn’t know what he’d do with anyone else.

**Author's Note:**

> i originally wrote this in my pocket notebook on a tiny, rickety airplane (as well as a larger, less rickety one) this winter and have been sitting on the idea of sharing it for a while, if only to get over my fears about my writing  
> difficulties that came up in proofs:  
> \- calculating the travel time between the Fallow Mire and Skyhold to see if Octavius keeping his hair up for the duration was reasonable (the answer is approximately 5-7 days, and given the time period and the speed at which Inquisition missions would be kept to, that feels reasonable)  
> \- convincing myself that i did Dorian justice (it can't be the worst interpretation out there)  
> \- a vague misconception of blood magic (i mean, it isn't INCORRECT, but it's not something that you could hold up to much great scrutiny)  
> apologies for referencing the armor/sock line in the summary AND fic, but it's a good one. (there are one or two other blatant canon dialogue references in there, too.)


End file.
